Caste in India: The Facts and the System c5.27

c5.27

Brahmanic Hinduism (as formulated in the editions which have reached us of the epics, the law-books, and, with some secondary modifications, the Purāṇas) shows us by comparison with the Veda two divine types, which are either entirely new, such as Brahma, Śiva, Kṛṣṇa, etc., or the profoundly transformed Viṣṇu, Indra, and Varuṇa; and also new governing ideas, like metempsychosis, the avatars, the great cosmic periods, the power of asceticism opposed to the power of gnosis, and so forth. I hardly think it is possible to trace this renewal merely to the elements known to us through the Śruti, even if we take into consideration the modifications to which they might have been subjected by the period when the sacerdotal literature was developing.